A Literary History of Women's Writing in Britain, 1660-1789

Susan Staves is Paul Prosswimmer Professor of Humanities Emerita at Brandeis University.

• Introduction; 1. Public women: the Restoration to the death of Aphra Behn, 1660–1689; 2. Partisans of virtue and religion, 1689–1702; 3. Politics, gallantry, and ladies in the reign of Queen Anne 1702–1714; 4. Battle joined, 1715–1737; 5. Women as members of the literary family, 1737–1756; 6. Bluestockings and sentimental writers, 1756–1776; 7. Romance and comedy, 1777–1789; Recommended modern editions; Select bibliography.

Review of the hardback: 'The decades of expertise evident here in the seemingly effortless syntheses of historical movements, and incisive arguments about a wide spectrum of authors are presented in wonderful prose, like backbone under fine linen. Any serious scholar of early women writers must own this book. As an aid to research it is a treat; as a teaching resource, a trove; as a meditation on what we are all about in our current reading of early women's texts, a challenge.' Chantel Lavoie, Eighteenth-Century Book Reviews Online